Search

Simple Summary: This study investigates the effectiveness of a novel genetics-based biopesticide, miR-184 agomir, against the English grain aphid, Sitobion avenae, a major wheat pest. miR-184 agomir interference significantly reduced aphid survival rates, particularly during their early developmental stages. Life table analysis demonstrated that the application of miR-184 agomir resulted in adverse effects on multiple vital parameters essential for the expansion of the aphid population. Population projection models predicted a substantial decline in the aphid population size at 60 days post-treatment. These findings underscore the potential of genetics-based biopesticides in the effective management of grain aphid populations, thereby contributing to wheat crop protection and environmental sustainability. The investigation of genetics-based biopesticides has become a central focus in pesticide studies due to their inherent advantages, including species specificity, environmental safety, and a wide range of target genes. In this study, a mixture of miR-184 agomir and nanomaterial star polycation (SPc) was used to treat the nymphs of the English grain aphid, Sitobion avenae (F.). The life parameters of the aphids at various developmental stages were analyzed using an age–stage two-sex life table to assess the effect of miR-184 agomir on the experimental population. The results indicated that miR-184 agomir had a significant negative effect on four key life parameters, including the intrinsic rate of increase, the finite rate of increase, the net rate of increase, and the mean generation time. The population prediction revealed a substantial reduction (91.81% and 95.88%) in the population size of S. avenae at 60 d after treatment with miR-184 agomir, compared to the control groups. Our findings suggest that the miR-184 agomir has the potential to reduce the survival rate and mean longevity of S. avenae, highlighting its potential as a promising candidate for the development of an effective genetics-based biopesticide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review identifies three major traditions in British landscape historiography: material/environmental, cultural, and phenomenological. The continuing vitality, methodological rigour, and popular reach of the material tradition is emphasized, notwithstanding persistent questions about the adequacy of its theoretical foundations. Its close cousin historical ecology has meanwhile developed into a broader environmental history, increasingly sensitive to ideological and institutional influences. The development of the cultural tradition, originating in art historical analysis of the 'landscape idea' as a culturally specific 'way of seeing', is traced through a rich proliferation of studies connecting landscape with memory, national identity, and governance, and through feminist, postcolonial, and history-from-below perspectives. The pervasive influence of the spatial, mobilities, and material turns is highlighted but phenomenology's focus on experience perhaps challenges the cultural tradition's premises more fundamentally. Although historians were slower than anthropologists and archaeologists to adopt phenomenology, medievalists and early modernists have applied it rewardingly to topics such as the settings of elite buildings, peasant landscape perceptions, and collective landscape memories. Few modernists have yet embraced phenomenology but it has great potential here given the abundant life-writing sources available. While scope remains for further convergence between research traditions, British landscape history is therefore in an exciting phase of methodological renewal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we challenge the claim that a conservative central bank strengthens the likelihood of a conservative government. In contrast, if an election is based on the comparative advantages of the candidates, an inflation-averse central banker can deter the chances of a conservative candidate because once inflation is removed, its comparative advantage in the fight against inflation disappears. We develop a theory based on a policy-mix game with electoral competition, predicting that a tighter monetary policy reduces the chances of a conservative (i.e., inflation-adverse) party while enhancing the chances for a liberal party. To test these predictions, we examine monthly data of British political history between 1987 and 2015, and show that an increase in the interest rate in the 10 months preceding a national election decreases the popularity of a Tory government. Our analysis on a panel of six OECD countries reveals that a pre-election increase of 1 percentage point in the main targeted interest rate rises the popularity of liberal parties by around 3.43 percentage points relative to its trend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a product of the first complete survey of British public representational monuments in the U.K. related to transatlantic slavery, available online at . Identifying over 900 monuments, it brings this survey to bear on current public and policy debates about such monuments' history, significance and meaning vis-à-vis slavery, art and heritage. Examining the monuments at scale, we identify the monuments' patterns of production and provide data-led answers to specific questions such as what Britain's most significant monumental legacies of slavery are; how enslaved people appear in British public monuments; and how this data might support rethinking these monuments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

David Hume's historical thought was shaped before he even began writing the History of Great Britain in 1752. This article shows how Hume developed his historical thought in an attempt to combine two historical structures: the natural-jurisprudential conjectural history of the Treatise of Human Nature and the early eighteenthcentury historical narratives of modern Europe that featured in his Essays. The Treatise's conjectural history used the developmental categories "rude" and "civilised" to explain the origins of justice, government and the moral sentiment. The narratives of modern Europe, in contrast, revolved around the historical categories "ancient" and "modern." Hume's historical thought was shaped by the attempt to merge those two structures into a single, coherent structure. The critical question concerned the relation between the ancient and the modern: was modern Europe merely a "revival" of classical antiquity? Or did it have new, "post-ancient" dimensions? The article shows how Hume gradually distanced classical antiquity from modern Europe, thereby creating space for exclusively modern concepts such as "civilised monarchies" and the narrative of modern civilisation that structured his History of England (1754-1762). The paper concludes by suggesting that this structure defined Enlightenment philosophical history, not just Hume's version of it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review discusses "The Oxford English Literary History: Volume 5: 1645–1714: The Later Seventeenth Century" by Margaret J. M. Ezell. The reviewer praises the book for its comprehensive coverage of women authors and audiences, which is a departure from previous literary histories. The book explores a wide range of texts, including manuscripts and soundscapes, and examines the impact of political, religious, and social upheavals on authors, texts, and readers during this period. The volume is organized chronologically and divided into five sections, each covering a specific time period. Overall, the book provides a valuable and nuanced understanding of English literary worlds during the late seventeenth century. [Extracted from the article]

Loyalism has a long history in the British Atlantic world, running much deeper than the years comprising the American Revolution. These stories, however, have often been pushed to the margins of our understanding of the era. In North Carolina, categorising colonial residents into the binaries of "rebel" or "loyalist" is problematic. This is further complicated by the introduction of gender as a factor, given the lack of access to and engagement with the public sphere that women experienced. While greater attention is being given to women in the Revolution, southern women's stories are often marginalised in favour of the "hotbeds" of revolution, like Boston, Philadelphia, or New York. By studying Scottish women loyalists in early North Carolina, Sherman argues, we may come to understand better the influence of gender, ethnicity, and region on the experiences of those in Revolutionary America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the treatises and law reports of Sir Edward Coke (1552–1634), the Attorney General under Elizabeth I and later, Chief Justice of the courts of Common Pleas and King's Bench. The article juxtaposes Coke's expressions of the common law's uniqueness and antiquity with the historical scholarship of Coke's peers that illuminated English legal, cultural, ethnic, linguistic, and institutional identity. This antiquarian historicism increasingly located the source of English ethno-cultural identity in the Anglo-Saxon period of English history. Whilst Coke's belief in an immemorial common law necessarily placed its origins in the native British past, the following argues that Coke was receptive to contemporary scholarship that had solidified the association of the Anglo-Saxons with a discrete sense of Englishness. Indeed, subscription to the burgeoning antiquarian consensus that the Anglo-Saxons were the first English people was not necessarily incongruous with belief in an immemorial, pre-Saxon common law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Covid-19 pandemic and Black Lives Matter protests have given renewed impetus to campaigns against racial inequality. In education, the issue of curriculum – and particularly the history curriculum – has been at the centre of campaigns to "decolonise the curriculum". While barriers to the teaching of "diverse" British histories in England's classrooms have long been recognised, relatively little research has been done on the crucial role of history teacher educators and teacher training in developing a diverse profession, practice, and curriculum. This paper seeks to address these gaps through analysis of interviews with history teacher educators, trainee history teachers and key stakeholders. In particular, it explores the responses of history teacher educators to recent calls for curriculum reform, charts how these demands for change have influenced thinking and practice in Initial Teacher Education (ITE) in history and identifies ongoing challenges to the development of more inclusive curriculum and pedagogic practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article establishes equanimity as an important emotional ideal in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In showing how equanimity served to strengthen positive emotions and temper disruptive states, it promotes a more positive view of the era's emotional landscape. The article employs the pursuit of equanimity as an intimate analytical device for uncovering the agency of ordinary people, and thus offers historians a new perspective on momentous change and adversity in the early modern period. It charts personal experiences of adversity—from physical and spiritual threats to familial disputes, uncertain patriarchal power and economic precarity—alongside individual management of religious, social and political change following the English Reformations and during the Civil War. Where other scholars have examined how different social groups reactively negotiated new realities, this microhistorical study of one gentry family in the North West of England urges historians to refocus their attention on the proactive courses that people took. Through a detailed examination of 541 manuscript letters, domestic decorative schemes, and archaeological evidence of ritual practices of protection, the article uncovers how the Moretons of Little Moreton Hall in Cheshire managed change and mitigated disaster. It discusses instances where equanimity played a persistent role in motivating the family's actions and behaviours in daily life, and argues that practices designed to promote emotional harmony were crucial for preserving kinship networks and managing personal well-being, as well as gender relations within households, in early modern England. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional interpretations of the reign of Philip and Mary in England and Ireland (1554–58) have tended to investigate this short-lived episode from a strongly Anglocentric perspective. Such an approach has often hindered interpretations of crucial aspects of the reign that have wider implications for the study of Britain, Spain and Europe in an increasingly globalised world. Philip's creation of a new consultative body in 1555, the select council (consejo escogido), is a case in point. Conventionally viewed as a superfluous body that only worsened the alleged ungovernability of Mary's privy council—from which, it was claimed, it was never truly separate—it has been assumed that the select council was allowed to function nominally for a while to sustain Philip's ego. In fact, the creation of the select council responded to the deeply rooted conciliar traditions of Spain and England (based on Aristotelian notions of 'political friendship') and its actual level of activity disproves previous assumptions about its role and viability. The diplomatic negotiations undertaken by the English select councillors and their Spanish and Flemish counterparts place England firmly within the conciliar framework of the Spanish Monarchy and provide an invaluable window from which to explore the role of England as a fully integrated member of a composite monarchy extending from Naples and Oran to Lima and Mexico City. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are currently debates inside and outside intersex communities about whether to include the I in LGBTQI+. Intersex has historically been critical in arguments about the boundaries between significant ontological and epistemological categories, particularly: female and male; homosexuality and heterosexuality; and sex, gender and sexuality. There is also a long history of conflation and confusion of categories of sex, gender and sexuality. It is clear that intersex is in some way inseparable from LGBT politics. This article will present the historical case study of Georgina Somerset, a British intersex woman, focusing on 1960–1970. Somerset's story illustrates both that intersex is different and separate from issues of gender and sexuality, and that intersex is always intimately connected to LGBT issues, whether historically or in contemporary politics. I identify four contemporary tensions that can be illuminated by this history of the entanglements and tensions of LGBT and I: the difficult boundary work between intersex and trans; the association of both intersex and trans with homosexuality; the issues of distraction and instrumentalization; and the affordances and limitations of identity politics. As the "I" was there all along, the politics of recognition might help us generate different discussions of LGBTQI+ politics and responsibilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1644 and 1672, England halted the production of its lowest denomination coins, prompting ordinary individuals and communities to create coins to address the shortage of small change. A large twentieth-century collection that includes over 13,000 such surviving tokens has largely been overlooked by historians and economists, despite the tokens' significance. In this source and others are a total of over 9,000 types of tokens, originating mainly from the City of London, thirty-seven English counties, and the Irish Pale. Catalogued in an eight-volume Sylloge, published over thirty years, the tokens offer valuable insights into England's history and societal dynamics during a tumultuous period that included two major regime changes, plague, and London's Great Fire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1985, British psychoanalyst Hanna Segal delivered the paper 'Silence is the Real Crime' to the first meeting of the group International Psychoanalysts Against Nuclear Weapons in Hamburg, appealing to her fellow analysts to counteract the denial of the geopolitical realities that characterized the late Cold War by intervening in public debates regarding the threat of nuclear war. A year later she gave a paper in London discussing clinical cases of patients who brought their nuclear anxieties to the couch. This article considers Segal's political and clinical writings on the psychological consequences of the atomic age, situating them in the context in which she was living, writing and practising as an analyst: 1980s Britain in a moment of 'nuclear anxiety'. I argue that Segal's anti-nuclear writings shed light on what she called the 'very very tricky' relationship between psychoanalysis and politics. Segal confronted the tension between maintaining clinical neutrality in the consulting room while publicly expressing her political commitments, wrestling with the complex relationships between individuals and the societies in which they live. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

James Chapman's book, "The Money Behind the Screen: A History of British Film Finance, 1945–1985," is highly recommended as a comprehensive and meticulously researched study of the subject. The book explores the challenges and interventions in British film finance during this period, drawing on primary sources such as archives and financial records. Chapman's work highlights the importance of understanding film finance beyond culturally significant films and demonstrates the correlation between production costs and box office performance. The book is structured chronologically and covers topics such as the National Film Finance Corporation, the Quota system, and the role of Film Finances. It also examines the modern era of British film finance, including the emergence of Channel 4 Television and the withdrawal of state support. Overall, this book provides valuable insights into the history of UK film finance and policy. [Extracted from the article]

Shawsheen, a model mill village planned and built in Andover, Massachusetts, between 1906 and 1924, was based on the vision of William Wood, then president of the American Woolen Company. It was arguably the most unique textile mill village ever built in New England. The article begins with a discussion of the motivation for the project. It then shifts to a summary of the critical features of Wood's vision and identifies the historic institutional paths that informed him. This is followed by an analysis of how the plan was successfully implemented and an explanation of what happened to Shawsheen over time. The article ends with an interpretation of the significance of the Shawsheen experience in the context of the history of New England mill towns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the name change of the journal "Twentieth Century British History" to "Modern British History" and the reasons behind this change. The journal aims to broaden its scope beyond the 1990s and reflect its openness to work on the recent past. It also explores the challenges of defining "modernity" and "Britishness" in the field of modern British history, emphasizing the need to consider transnational contexts and expand methodologies and approaches. The article further examines the impact of digitization on historical research, highlighting both the opportunities and limitations it presents. It also addresses the importance of embracing digital methodologies and acknowledges the impact of working conditions and inequalities in higher education on the field of history. The issue of the journal includes various commentaries, roundtables, and reflections on the field, as well as showcasing the journal's initiatives and award-winning articles. The authors express gratitude to contributors and emphasize the significance of peer review in sustaining the vitality and robustness of the field. [Extracted from the article]

This article discusses the author's experiences teaching British history in the United States and the challenges and opportunities that arise from teaching history in a contemporary context. The author emphasizes the importance of situating Britain within its imperial and global relationships and using postcolonial methodologies to analyze the ways in which imperialism and colonialism have shaped the world. The author also highlights the significance of incorporating diverse perspectives and critical methodologies, such as creative assignments, to engage students and bridge the gap between the classroom and the world. Ultimately, the author aims to provide students with reparatory history that addresses the ongoing issues of colonialism and dispossession in the present day. [Extracted from the article]

This article discusses the place of Welsh history within higher education, particularly in the context of British history modules. The author, a Senior Lecturer in Modern Welsh History at Cardiff University, highlights the challenges and importance of incorporating Welsh history into primarily British history modules. They emphasize the entangled nature of social life and cultures between Wales and England, while also acknowledging the distinctiveness of Welsh history. The article also explores how students respond to Welsh history modules and the value of local library and archival connections for research. Overall, the author argues for a four nations approach to teaching British history that recognizes the complexity of national identity and the importance of diverse perspectives. [Extracted from the article]

The University of Derby offers a strong History program that focuses on modern British history from the eighteenth century. The curriculum emphasizes the interrelationships between the different parts of the UK and the wider British Isles, challenging present-mindedness and providing a broader context for understanding developments in modern British history. The program also ensures that students understand Britain's place in wider European and global history. The curriculum design emphasizes the development of research skills and offers opportunities for students to engage with external organizations and present their research at conferences. The program aims to produce confident and articulate graduates who can critically analyze historical themes and develop their own independent perspectives. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses the importance of breadth in teaching and research in the field of modern British history. The author emphasizes the value of interdisciplinary approaches and the need for researchers to have a strong understanding of both Britain and the wider world. The article also highlights the importance of research skills in navigating breadth and encourages a pluralistic approach to teaching and research. The author argues that a broader understanding of history can lead to a deeper understanding of modern Britain and its relationship with the world. [Extracted from the article]

This article discusses the experience of teaching modern British history in a social sciences context. The author, a historian of social policy, highlights the deep relationship between history and sociology, as well as other social sciences. They explain that teaching history outside of a history department requires considering what history is as a discipline. The author emphasizes the importance of teaching history to students studying related disciplines, such as sociology and criminology, and how history can provide a longer view of key issues. They also discuss the challenges and benefits of teaching and researching outside of a history department. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses the concept of inclusivity in teaching and learning modern British history in UK higher education. It explores how the idea of inclusivity has shaped research, teaching, and learning in the field, with a focus on new approaches to storytelling, pedagogical debates, and considerations of who learns this history. The article also highlights the challenges faced by historians in the current political climate, including attacks on critical approaches to studying Britain's history and concerns about access to education for socio-economic elites. The Open University is presented as an institution that plays a major role in widening access to studying modern British history, particularly for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. The article discusses the OU's distance learning model and the use of technology to create inclusive learning environments. It also acknowledges the limitations and barriers faced by certain groups of students, such as those in prison. The OU's curriculum design is described as an opportunity to teach a genuinely 'British' history that reflects the diverse identities and cultures of its students across the UK. The article concludes by emphasizing the importance of inclusive teaching and learning in building a more inclusive future for the field of modern British history. [Extracted from the article]

Nations have long since preoccupied historians. Histories of how nations came to be, how they persisted, and how nations were unmade are innumerable. As a political unit of analysis, the nation has fascinated and divided. On the one hand, histories of the nation have traced the origins of particular nation states, analysing how a large body of people becomes united within a geographic territory through a shared language, a shared identity, and a shared culture. On the other hand, such histories have been criticized for reifying the nation-state, stressing the majority over the minority, and ultimately for obfuscating differences. The nation as a structure can indeed serve the needs of the ruling establishment to create a governing society. How then, can historians retain the nation as a unit of analysis without for example valorizing England in histories of the UK? Why is it so often that in histories of Britain, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales are mentioned as a comparable case and not the focus itself? Is it possible to ensure that histories of the British Isles reject and refuse implicit hierarchies that routinely prioritize one nation over other nations? Fundamentally, is it even worthwhile to study the nation instead of, for example, focusing on specific gendered groups, or ethnic communities or labour movements for instance? By focusing on thematic experiences rather than the nation-state can historians avoid inadvertently reproducing structural inequality in twenty-first-century Britain? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the first issue of the renamed journal, Modern British History co-editor Erik Linstrum convened a group of scholars to reflect on the past, present, and possible futures of the field. The resulting contributions make no claim to provide a comprehensive or representative survey. Rather, they offer a variety of perspectives on where modern British history has been and where it might be going. Several contributions, written by former editors of Twentieth Century British History , drawn on the history of the journal as a way of thinking about the direction of the field and its subfields. Others consider the place of modern Britain in the wider discipline of history, grappling with questions of temporality and embodiment; the institutional and material contexts of scholarship; the role of national histories in a transnational world; and the response of historical writing to epidemiological, humanitarian, and ecological crisis. The sequence of contributions mirrors the evolution of the journal since its founding in 1990, beginning with political history and gradually encompassing a much broader range of subjects and methodologies as well as an expanded geographical ambit. Here are archive stories, pleas for new subjects, roadmaps for new approaches to old subjects, and attempts to identify master narratives. Taken together, these contributions demonstrate that modern British history has many houses—which is both a sign of intellectual vitality and a challenge for anyone wishing to generalize about the 'state of the field'. If British modernity remains an abundant resource for 'thinking with', its contours and frontiers are tantalizingly up for grabs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Caroline Elkins' book, Legacy of Violence, delves into the mechanics of British colonial counter-insurgencies, focusing on the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya from 1952 to 1960. Elkins argues that the British forces suppressed the uprising more brutally than previously acknowledged, with collusion between colonial Nairobi and London to downplay the atrocities. The book also explores the broader history of violence in the British Empire, connecting it to imperial ideologies and the contradiction between liberal ideals and oppressive practices. Elkins draws on a range of sources, including archival documents, personal testimonies, and cultural references, to provide a comprehensive examination of the subject. [Extracted from the article]

In the 1610s and 1620s, a new computational technology took hold in England: printed mathematical tables for compound interest and discounting ("present value") problems. Historians of finance and accounting have long recognized these paper tools as predecessors of essential modern techniques like "discounted cash flow." Yet the history of these tables remains hazy. What did early seventeenth-century users do with them? Who used them? Why did they appear when they did? This article turns to one obscure but influential text—Ambrose Acroyd's Tables of Leasses and Interest (1628)—as a guide to these questions. Two key facts emerge. First, despite the prominence of similar calculations in financial applications today, these early tables were not confined to England's nascent financial sector. Rather, their foremost use related to agricultural property, specifically in assessing certain payments ("fines") landlords charged tenants for farm leases. Second, among the leading "early adopters" were institutions of the Church of England. Amidst the inflation of the early modern "price revolution," bishops, cathedrals, and colleges confronted a complex of economic, political, and social pressures. Mathematical tables like Acroyd's emerged out of long-running conflicts between church landlords and tenants over how to determine just and reasonable fines on church lands. Discounting tables were thus not tools of instrumental rationality evincing a new capitalist mentality, but tools of social accommodation and products of the era's "economy of obligation." This early modern tale offers a vivid example of how and why one community turned to a mathematical algorithm to resolve conflicts about fairness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It was with great interest that I read the recent special issue of Sport in History (42.4) which reflected on the past, present and future of the British Society of Sports History (BSSH). I congratulate BSSH on its many successes in helping catalyse and galvanise significant developments in sports history whilst also embracing changing social values and attitudes in wider society. It is wonderful to read just how far the field of sports history has moved forward this past 40 years with many new initiatives, personalities and engagements with the wider public. However, some aspects of the society's history as portrayed in that special issue require clarification since, as all readers of the journal will appreciate, one of the most valuable lessons from history is that it is only through better understanding of our past that we better understand our present, and it is for this reason that I thought it worth writing to help provide some additional context. I intend to offer this clarification here by elaborating on several themes: the genesis, formation, aims and activities of the society; support of and engagement with its membership; BSSH activities to engage the wider public, and BSSH's changing profile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Lost Meteorites of Antarctica project was the first UK‐led Antarctic meteorite recovery expedition. The project has successfully confirmed two new high‐density meteorite stranding zones in the Hutichison Icefield and Outer Recovery Icefields areas and investigated the geology of three previously unvisited Antarctic nunataks (Turner Nunatak, Pillinger Nunatak, Halliday Nunatak). The project undertook meteorite searching on the ice surface via skidoo reconnaissance and systematic searching and developed a novel pulse induction metal detection system to search for englacial iron‐rich meteorites trapped within the upper one meter of ice. In total, 121 meteorites have been recovered from the ice surface searching activities, which are now curated in the United Kingdom at the Natural History Museum London and are available for scientific analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Driven by the quality of sources rather than their representativeness, the history of English agriculture has been written primarily from the perspective of well-documented large farms to the neglect of smallholders and cottagers who for centuries cultivated the greater part of the nation's farmland but left scant records. The superb series recording the mediocre and low crop yields of the expansive demesnes of great lords has long been adopted for the productivity of all medieval England's arable and is deeply embedded in economic and social histories and calculations of economic growth and the welfare of the population. Yet no convincing justification for this supposition has ever been made, and an increasing flow of research and analysis indicates that the productivity of land varied markedly in accordance with the size and function of farms, with the output per acre of large farms constrained by the need to control costs in order to sell surpluses at a profit, while smallholders, at the cost of low and frequently abysmal labour productivity, produced higher yields by striving to maximize output using abundant family labour to secure subsistence from meagre acreages. An appraisal of farming across the centuries and the continents from the Middle Ages to modern times clearly shows that an inverse relationship generally prevailed between farm size and land productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reassesses conceptions of the religious conformity required of public magistrates in the 1560s through the prism of William Cecil's schemes for reformation of the state. Scholars have argued that 'the Crown's' aims in defining the conformity of subjects were 'political' rather than 'evangelical' and primarily focused on securing obedience. This article argues instead that leading Protestants, clerical and lay, viewed the creation of the Christian commonwealth as a joint enterprise of minister and magistrate. In private memoranda, Cecil insisted that the security of the polity was dependent on magistrates who possessed 'inward' Protestantism 'of the hart'. Cecil's earliest scheme for an 'Instrument of Association' binding the Protestant elite, was devised in this period, fuelled by his vision of the Protestant polity not as 'monarchical republic' of virtuous citizens, but a 'confessional state' governed by a network of officials bound by loyalty to Crown and church. The article concludes by analysing the Privy Council's attempts to secure the closer conformity of the magistracy to the religious settlement by subscription. In November 1569, local officials across the realm were compelled to subscribe to the Act of Uniformity and to promise to take the eucharist on a regular basis, a sacramental requirement not required of officials by statute law until the Restoration. The aspiration of the Protestant regime to require stricter religious conformity of its public officials indicates that 'conformity' itself was a nebulous concept, which could be imposed on targeted groups at different times and places and through variant means. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is an invitation to shift the analytic focus of empire to its small spaces. Bringing one aspect of the trade history of British India – the trade in European provisions and foodstuff – in conversation with the history of colonial architecture and Anglo-Indian foodways, I argue that small spaces might reveal cultural practices and attendant structures of power that are not evident when our attention remains lodged in dominant transactions, large spaces, big events, and bulk commodities. In this article I specifically turn to the bottlekhana, a storage space in colonial buildings in India, and its role in mediating the consumption of European food. This line of inquiry takes the discussion of European imports to India to the realm of servants and women who rarely figure in trade histories of the British empire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues for a distinction between "conduct politeness" and "etiquette politeness", where the former refers to the propriety of what people do and the latter to the decorum of how people do things. In everyday discourse, the distinction is often fuzzy, but as a second order distinction the terminology provides a useful analytical tool. In the history of politeness in English, a bifurcation into the two types of politeness can be observed in the eighteenth century, and today the distinction provides additional conceptual clarity of the changing theoretical focus during the three waves of politeness theory. After a review of the historical link between morals and manners, a brief case study focuses on their separation in the eighteenth century. A final discussion applies the distinction to the paradox that politeness is often seen as a positive thing that, unfortunately, is on the decline and as a negative thing because it is insincere, superficial and hypocritical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An examination of the Siege of Sidney Street, and the associated Houndsditch police murders and 'Tottenham Outrage' is not new. The author of this new work, Andrew Whitehead, takes the reader beyond a narrative detail of these momentous events in British criminal history and instead looks at the political and social situation in London's East End, only a generation after the Ripper era. He examines the lives and backgrounds to the outsiders of the era – Eastern European 'revolutionary anarchists' fleeing Imperial Russia and the oppression of the tsarist Okhrana secret police, to the supposedly tolerant shores of England. He seeks to understand what motivated their decision to commit such heinous crimes, and the fallout for the perpetrators, and wider British society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses a book titled "PEACE, POVERTY, AND BETRAYAL: A New History of British India" by Roderick Matthews. The book focuses on the history of the British in India, specifically the upper echelons of the East India Company and the Raj. The author argues that Britain brought modernity to India until the events of 1857 led to a retreat and betrayal of the Indians. The book has received praise for its comprehensive exploration of British India's rulers and their policies, but some critics argue that it lacks a diverse perspective and relies on outdated narratives. Another book mentioned in the article is "Reordering Adivasi Worlds: Representation, Resistance, Memory" by Sangeeta Dasgupta, which challenges the unified narrative about South Asia's Indigenous peoples and explores the complexities and diversity within Adivasi society. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses a book titled "Hidden histories of British psychoanalysis: from Freud's death bed to Laing's missing tooth" by Brett Kahr. The book explores the personal and professional history of various aspects of 20th-century British psychoanalysis. It includes interviews, archival material, and self-reflection to provide a unique and enjoyable perspective on the subject. The book covers topics such as Sigmund Freud's life and work in London, D.W. Winnicott's contributions, the development of Bowlby's ideas, and the rise and fall of Masud Khan and R.D. Laing. The author's love and admiration for these figures are evident throughout the book. [Extracted from the article]

Scholarly knowledge about the interplay of Wagnerian opera and British church history has advanced on an uneven front and has yet to reach lofty heights. Relatively little has been published about how Parsifal, Richard Wagner’s final and arguably most religious opera, was perceived in the United Kingdom. The present study begins to fill that gap by investigating how a spectrum of British Catholics diversely debated such crucial themes as the extent to which Parsifal was a Christian work, the possible mimesis of the Mass in the Holy Grail scenes, the construction of the title character as a symbolic Christ figure, and whether the staging of this work, whose spiritual content was widely acknowledged, could appropriately be performed in a secular setting like the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Burke intervened in a very significant way at various moments in the political history of the England of his time. Although being considered by some commentators to be a utilitarian, in fact, it is Burke's fidelity to the principles of natural law that makes all his political interventions coherent. The aim of this paper is to analyze the subordination of positive law to natural law and original justice in Burke's thought, and we will achieve that by perusing his works through different periods of his career. In order to better understand his position, we will call to the conversation John Locke, from whom he departs, and Francisco de Vitoria, with whom he shares the notion of a society-dependent human nature. From the prophetic views of Burke and Tocqueville about the future, and as a kind of conclusion, we will question if the reference to natural law makes sense in present times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In March 2022 the United Kingdom (UK) government published Inclusive Britain: the government's response to the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities. This accepts the 'bad apple' understanding of racism but is incurious as to the historical context and existing power relations shaping racist attitudes, thereby creating a tension with its stated aim of developing a model history curriculum. This article will address two, key issues resulting from this tension: Firstly, it unpicks Inclusive Britain's handling of race and, secondly, adopts a decolonial standpoint to critique its recommendation on how to make the school history curriculum more inclusive. The article concludes that Inclusive Britain's vision of the UK as 'multi-racial' serves to re-establish racial categories as an unquestioned and unproblematic series of fixed, reified identities, without acknowledging the hierarchies and uneven power relations inherent in racial terminology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Education Sciences: Education - Research - Innovation / Neveléstudomány: Oktatás - Kutatás - Innováció is the property of Education Sciences: Education - Research - Innovation and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)